The more relevant written content presented on your website, the more likely your site will appear in search results.

Being wordy isn’t the only way to make your small business website out perform your competitors in search engines, but having more to say about your business is far better for your website presence than not saying enough.

Beyond a brief explanation of the business, many small business owners don’t know what to say when asked to elaborate about their company. If writing seems overwhelming, record a conversation about your business. If questions come up, answer them and turn those questions and answers into an FAQ section of your website. I would encourage my clients to talk about their business. Talk about the products, the services, the reasons you do the things you do and sell the things you sell the way you do. Talk about why a customer should use you. Talk about what your customers have to say about you and if your company has any awards or belongs to any groups and why. We don’t have to worry about running out of space on the page of a brochure, there’s plenty of room for text on any and every webpage on your site. Over explain.

Loads of content don’t ensure high website conversion rates or low bounce rates. Conversions are turning a visitor into a lead by encouraging them to take action while on your site either by filling out a form to contact you or picking up the phone to call. Bounce rates are how quickly a website visitor who finds your site visits and then leaves. If they leave quickly, the bounce rate is high. Expansive web copy, however, does increase the likelyhood that your website will be found and visitors will show up in the first place. Once there, then conversions and bounce rate come into play.

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A good webmaster will take all that text and break it up for readability. Rough copy can be edited so instead of being tempted to copy text from competitor’s websites, write about your business in your own words. Headlines, subheadlines, bulleted lists and imagery can make a page much more attractive and invite the reader to continue reading. Adequate font size and leading (the vertical space between each line of text), clear and consistent navigation and calls to action also helps to lead visitors through the site and just in case they don’t, the most important information should be closer to the top of each page, “above the fold”, which is the first view of the page before a visitor has to scroll down.

Having plenty of text about your business doesn’t just better inform your website visitors about your company, it better informs search engines about what to do with your website and how to index your site in search results. For example, a webpage that only includes gallery photos of your paintings will not appear in search results as often or as high as a site that explains about the inspiration for the collection of work, the medium used to create them, the setting or subject of the paintings, the dates, times and location of the next art show where the works can be seen in person and purchasing information along with the photo gallery of the paintings. A short caption beneath each image is important but is not enough to give your content the weight it needs to make an impression in search results.

Remember that web design is fluid and can always change. Writing content for your website should not end when the site is launched and online working for you. Each time you add a new product or service, host or participate in an event, offer a discount on something you do or want to congratulate an exceptional employee for outstanding service, send new content to your webmaster and freshen up your site. You won’t run out of room and the copy will add weight to your domain.

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One strategy On Your Mark recommends to our New Jersey small business clients Is to include video testimonials in their internet marketing. Video testimonials are the gold egg of trust building tools that help a business build credibility with a website visitor who has never seen or heard about them before.

Some small businesses claim the growth and success of their company can be traced back almost entirely to word of mouth referrals. We hear this all the time! Similarly, when a customer talks about the positive experience they had with your business on camera, that real life testimony becomes a valuable trust building tool. This is not a little quoted blurb that may have been edited or even fabricated by the savvy business owner or marketing professional. This first person story telling shows potential clients that their experience is real and in the customer’s own words. It also speaks to the gratitude felt by the customer because of the effort and time it took that person to participate in the video on behalf of the company. A positive video testimonial speaks to the service and/or products provided by the business and showcases the relationship between the client and the customer.

Sometimes a client will feel awkward about asking their customers for testimonials about their business. For some, soliciting a positive review may feel like a hard conversation. In all seriousness and to be blunt… get over it. This is a feeling we strongly suggest you put aside or find a way to approach your customers in a way that can soften the request and make it seem less like you are asking for praise and more like you are requesting feedback so that you can improve upon the services you provide your own customers. You intend to use their input as a tool to improve your own services, operations and customer service. The fact is, testimonials, online reviews and the closely related subject of reputation management, are an essential cog in the internet marketing machine – and it’s better to be proactive about your online reputation that to be purely reactive to it. The more positive testimonials you can accrue from happy customers, the less devastating it will be when and if a nasty review were to appear online about your company.

An additional benefit of creating video testimonials is they can also increase your online footprint. Youtube in a massive search engine owned by Google. Video testimonials are considered original video content that should be published on a youtube channel set up for your business. Each video should be optimized with a link and optimized description back to your website. This arrangement has the potential to gain you traffic from people browsing youtube, as well as provides a relevant, high quality link that will give your website more weight in the eyes of Google search results and can potentially improve your website’s search engine ranking.

If you have a positive relationship with clients who have used your small business, you should consider collaborating to create a video testimonial to add to your marketing efforts. This would certainly help to build trust with potential customers and increase the lead generating power of your small business website.